The idea is simple: Make it easy for everyone to live a healthy, green lifestyle and impact the causes they care about most.

When he was 13 he was traveling with his father up the Amazon in a thatch-covered boat. His father was an ornithologist (study of birds).

“What struck me most was the contrast between the remote tribes living in harmony with the rainforest, and the poverty and deforestation in the most “modernized” towns we visited”, said Paynter on the About Us page of the site. He saw that the world was terribly out of balance and began to believe that we each have the power to make positive changes in our world.

“The answer came in 1998. The Internet. Finally, the power to mobilize the world was at hand. I raised money from some kind and crazy souls, and then really lucked out in finding two extraordinary partners — Matt McGlynn (now our chief technology officer) and Camilla Eriksson (now our vice president of eCards. In September 1998, we launched Care2 from my tiny apartment” Paynter writes.

The website is driven by those who wish to make changes in this world. They are a certified B Corporation.

The Butterflies

The butterflies on the logo are designed after a Physics concept called “The Butterfly Effect“. It symbolizes to them that one person can take a small step and make a difference.

You can earn butterfly credits by taking various actions like signing a petition and taking the daily action. These credits can be redeemed for gifts that make the world a better place.

There is an online community and plenty of fun topics and polls. you can create groups or join existing ones.

Taking Action

There are so many petitions you can sign on a wide array of topics and issues that you may support. There is a daily action that you can do and earn credits for.

There is also a whole section on Healthy and Green Living.

I have been signed up for emails through this site for some time now. Some of my other blogs are based on these emails about petitions available tailored to the issues I am concerned with at the moment. I have always had a good experience with this Organization. Enjoy, and help by taking your own little steps…we can make a difference!

The “newest” cat species described to science, the Sunda clouded leopard, actually exists in two distinct forms, scientists have confirmed. This big cat is so enigmatic that researchers only realised it was a new species – distinct from clouded leopards living elsewhere in Asia – in 2007. The first footage of the cat in the wild to made public was only released last year.

Genetic analysis has confirmed that the cats living in Sumatra and Borneo are indeed different forms. So that makes two more additions to the clouded leopard family, which is generally considered to be the most elusive of all of the big cats.

In Vermont, a landmark measure has been introduced to revoke the granting of personhood rights to U.S. corporations.
The bill calls for a constitutional amendment declaring “corporations are not persons under the laws of the United States.” The measure’s introduction Friday came on the one-year anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision on the case of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which opened the floodgates for unlimited corporate spending on election campaigns.

Everywhere you look, communities, businesses, cities and states are taking positive steps to address the climate crisis. From schools and churches installing solar panels or working to become more energy efficient to city councils and state legislatures adopting climate-friendly policies, we’re seeing considerable progress in communities across the country.

As 2011 begins, Repower America is collecting as many of these inspiring stories as possible. We’ve done lots of research on our own, but now we need your help to identify the efforts underway in your community.

On the Expedition

You’ll monitor mammal populations to determine the impacts of climate change and other environmental challenges.

Working in diverse habitats, from forests to meadows and from wetlands to sweeping beaches, you’ll use various methods to monitor Nova Scotian wildlife. You’ll observe the behavior of raccoons, beavers, skunks, and porcupines, and establish the locations of dens and wildlife trails. You may also use infrared video surveillance and camera traps to monitor more elusive animals such as fisher (a type of marten), coyote, or bobcat. You’ll use trapping grids to sample rodents and shrews, and count deer and snowshoe hare droppings to estimate their population densities and habitat preferences. You may also be involved with using bat detectors to count bats, sampling invertebrates, surveying seabirds, and watching for marine wildlife. In your recreational time, you can go to the waterfront town of Lunenburg and visit museums, see the famous racing schooner Bluenose, check email, and enjoy the shops.

About the Research Area

Geologically, the province of Nova Scotia is the oldest part of the North American Shield. It is almost completely surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, connected to mainland Canada’s east coast by a tiny piece of land. Across the Bay of Fundy from Nova Scotia is New Brunswick, Canada, north of the state of Maine in the United States. A large part of the province, Cape Breton, is an island connected to Nova Scotia’s mainland by a causeway. The province is twice the size of Massachusetts, and just a bit smaller than Ireland. Wherever you go in Nova Scotia, you are no more than 56 kilometers (35 miles) from the sea.

Nova Scotia’s highest point, on hilly Cape Breton Island, is White Hill Lake at 530 meters (1,742 feet) above sea level. The lowest lands in the province are actually below sea level, in the Annapolis Valley. Huge dikes hold back the sea and create thousands of acres of farmland. Much of the middle and upper parts of the province are rocky highland plateaus reminiscent of the Scottish landscapes of many of the province’s ancestors.

Cook’s Lake, a focal area for the project, is more than just a lake: The area contains some 330 acres (134 hectares) of mixed coniferous and deciduous woodland, hay meadows, ponds, streams, and wetlands. This woodland has been owned by the family of Earthwatch scientist Dr. Christina Buesching for 20 years as a haven for wildlife.

Since it was passed almost a decade ago, some of the most noxious portions of the PATRIOT Act have burrowed their way deep into our legal system. A year ago, President Obama signed a bill extending three provisions of the original PATRIOT Act; last week Congressman Mike Rogers (R-Michigan) introduced legislation to extend them again.

Barack Obama’s justice department has come out in favor of renewing three controversial PATRIOT Act provisions. The silver lining? Tthe Justice Department also declares its openness to “modifications” of those provisions designed to provide checks and balances, provided they don’t undermine investigations. The problem with many of the law’s provisions is that there are needed constraints and oversight mechanisms.

Three of the Potential Changes That Can Be Made:

Consider the much-contested “roving wiretap” provision allowing warrants under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to cover all the communications devices a target might use without specifying the facilities to be monitored in advance—at least in cases where there are specific facts supporting the belief that a target is likely to take measures to thwart traditional surveillance. The objection to this provision is not that intelligence officers should never be allowed to obtain roving warrants, which also exist in the law governing ordinary law enforcement wiretaps. The issue is that FISA is fairly loosey-goosey about the specification of “targets”—they can be described rather than identified. That flexibility may make some sense in the foreign intel context, but when you combine it with similar flexibility in the specification of the facility to be monitored, you get something that looks a heck of a lot like a general warrant. It’s one thing to say “we have evidence this particular phone line and e-mail account are being used by terrorists, though we don’t know who they are” or “we have evidence this person is a terrorist, but he keeps changing phones.” It’s another—and should not be possible—to mock traditional particularity requirements by obtaining a warrant to tap someone on some line, to be determined. FISA warrants should “rove” over persons or facilities, but never both.

The DOJ letter describes the so-called “Lone Wolf” amendment to FISA as simply allowing surveillance of targets who are agents of foreign powers without having identified which foreign power (i.e. which particular terrorist group) they’re working for. They say they’ve never invoked this ability, but want to keep it in reserve. If that description were accurate, I’d say let them. But as currently written, the “lone wolf” language potentially covers people who are really conventional domestic threats with only the most tenuous international ties—the DOJ letter alludes to people who “self-radicalize” by reading online propaganda, but are not actually agents of a foreign group at all.

Finally, there’s the “business records” provision, which actually covers the seizure of any “tangible thing.” The problems with this one probably deserve their own post, and ideally you’d just go through the ordinary warrant procedure for this. But at the very, very least there should be some more specific nexus to a particular foreign target than “relevance” to a ongoing investigation before an order issues. The gag orders that automatically accompany these document requests also require more robust judicial scrutiny.

The link above will take you to Demand Progress and there is an option to sign their petition.

The link leads to an interactive map of 42 identified tiger-friendly habitats or “source sites” across 9 Asian countries.

Whereas tigers once roamed much of Asia, today they occupy just 6 percent of their available habitat.

Only 1,000 out of approximately 3,200 of the remaining population are breeding females.

Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand, and Russia are the 9 out of 12 countries, where the tiger remains wild, that the Wildlife Conservation Society are working with.

Each source site is represented by a dot on the interactive map. Each gives more detailed information on the conditions and circumstances in those areas.

Current threats to tigers can be put in two major categories:

Poaching and Retributive Killing

Illegal hunting and poaching are primarily to blame for the depleted population. Tigers are among the most sought-after victims of the wildlife trade. On the black market, a whole tiger is worth less than the sum of its parts. While its skin might sell for $10,000, its bones and body parts can fetch double or even triple that amount. Once sold, tiger parts often end up on pharmacy shelves as medicines and dining tables as delicacies across Asia.

“Once tigers are taken from the wild, they are smuggled across multiple borders through an elaborate illegal network en route to their final destination,” says Chantal Elkin, former director of the wildlife trade program at Conservation International. “There is a desperate need to strengthen political will to increase protection of tigers in their habitat and root out these trade networks.”

Tigers are prized for their distinctive striped skins and nearly every body part imaginable. Practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine believe that consumption of tiger parts is good for a person’s health. For instance, joint pain and stiffness are treated with medicines containing tiger bones, and virility with tiger genitals. Tiger bone liquor is also available on the Chinese market, and tiger skin and fur are commonly used in decorative clothing and other luxury goods.

Habitat Loss and Fragmentation

Tigers that have been spared by the trade face yet another threat: loss of their home. In recent years, Asian countries have begun clearing entire forests to meet the needs of growing populations and economies. As a result, tigers now are forced to roam around landscapes that are too small and fragmented to support their prey.

What is especially worrisome about the decline of tigers is that it’s occurring despite the animal’s legal protection. In every country where tigers exist are laws that prohibit their hunting, poaching, and international trade. However, weak law enforcement and inadequate security at tiger sanctuaries is failing to safeguard the exquisite animal.

Domestic trade in tiger parts is banned in both India and China, yet tiger farms still operate in China, and some have expressed interest in seeing the ban lifted. CI is collaborating with non-governmental organizations (NGOs), such as TRAFFIC and Save the Tiger Fund, to protest lifting the ban. The joint NGO group aims to set the record straight about the pitfalls of reopening trade and its harmful impacts on farmed and wild tigers.

Trade bans have been extremely effective when properly enforced, as demonstrated by the recovery of Russia’s Siberian tiger population. An international effort by NGOs and Russian authorities to secure safe habitat for the tiger has succeeded in stabilizing its population for the last decade. Increased habitat and patrolling have also helped protect wild tigers in Indonesia through a program supported by the CI-administered Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund.

These achievements show that education and targeted enforcement of laws and protected areas can save lives. And with so few tigers left in the wild, every animal counts.